New Delhi: SpaceX has revolutionised the space industry, bringing changes in cost effectiveness and the launch of satellites. This is accomplished through reusability, which first started in 2016 with the rocket stages and then with the ultra-large Starship in 2024, which has brought the cost of launching to LEO to around $5,000 per kg, well below ISRO’s base cost estimate.
Low-cost has helped to increase satellites from 4,256 in 2016 to over 10,000 today and is predicted to reach 58,000 in 2030. While ISRO, which recently boasted of its frugal engineering solutions, needs to compete in this new market environment.
What Led to the Cost-Effectiveness of ISRO?
ISRO’s previous cost advantage was based on the ‘frugal engineering’ principle, which is defined as resource efficiency. Rather than using high-quality materials, and even when constructing spacecraft and satellites, wherever possible, ISRO aimed to create missions that had as few redundancies as possible, and where possible, all with the aim of providing cost-effective applications for India such as weather forecasting and remote sensing. These strategies, coupled with lower labour costs in India, made ISRO a low-cost player in the world for launching satellites. However, SpaceX’s entry into the market with its faster pace of innovation has posed a challenge to ISRO.
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SpaceX’s Competitive Edge
SpaceX is a commercial organisation that has been quickly changing out its rocket designs and focusing on reuse of hardware, which has put down the costs of launch. The first point is that the Falcon 9 has been designed to launch the first stage and then reuse it up to 23 times; this has brought down the costs significantly. Also, SpaceX integrates vertically, and the company’s operations involve a lot of robotics, which makes the manufacturing faster and cheaper. This has made SpaceX make great strides that other traditional conservative space agencies cannot make due to their intolerance to risk.
The Path Forward: PSA and Technological Enhancements
Thus, in order to close this gap, perhaps ISRO needs to become more experimental and involve private players to a greater extent. To this effect, with New Space India Ltd. (NSIL) and with IN-SPACe initiatives, India is looking to build a much more vibrant space economy. More government support and incentives for the startups are very important; however, ISRO may have to focus on such values as reusable rockets, etc. These challenges have been highlighted by ISRO Chairman S Somanath, and he stressed reusability, miniaturisation, and intelligent systems.
As the global space economy booms, ISRO’s task is clear: to adapt to these changes and shift from one strategy and partnership to another in order to regain its position as a provider of affordable access to space in a relatively new age of cost leadership.
